The day after the US mid-terms, Donald Trump staged a rambling 90-minute press conference to spin the dross of Republican electoral loss into the gold of never-ending Trumpian triumph, and thus re-establish his personal ownership of the news cycle. The press made it easy for him.

I’ve never been a fan of press-conference journalism. It may be a marginal improvement on canned-quotes press-release journalism when it comes to public accountability, but most press conferences I’ve attended are little more than carefully staged theatre pieces designed to control and direct the flow of information and emotion in ways favourable to the presenter....

Americans are right to be outraged at the outrageous Russian interference in their 2016 presidential elections. They are correct to be appalled not only that their Putin-puttana-ed president continues to pretend that what happened didn’t happen, but also that their commander-in-chief and his principle-free, me-too Republican Congressional congregation refuse to act to prevent more...

In the past month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped 21 vessels in the Gulf of Maine “looking for illegal immigrants.” Illegal immigrants? From Canada? Or should that be to Canada?

“Border disputes do not go away; they fester. And when other factors push them back to the surface — the discovery of valuable resources, an assertion of national pride, a mishap at sea — the stakes can suddenly rise to a point where easy solutions become impossible.” — John Kelly Retired US diplomat who served...

Morning File, Friday, June 8, 2018

1. It can happen here President Donald Trump. Premier Doug Ford. Two years ago this would have been unthinkable. Now it’s reality. And these aren’t just some weird blips in history. There’s always been an undercurrent of nativism in North American history, and no manner of wishful thinking is going to make it go away. […]

You know the way progress traditionally happens in politics: slowly, incrementally. And then you wake up one morning to the latest news from the Ontario provincial election campaign trail... or the White House. Progress, as Barack Obama once said, may not always be a straight line or a smooth path. But is there still a line? A path?

“We need to go forward, but progress isn’t always a straight line or a smooth path.” Barack Obama victory speech, November 7, 2012 How to explain our current political whipsaw? You go to sleep one night knowing 6,000 delegates to this weekend’s federal Liberal party convention will debate progressive resolutions to de-criminalize possession of small...

You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand You see somebody naked and you say, “Who is that man?” You try so hard but you don’t understand Just what you will say when you get home Because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is Do you, Mr. Jones?...

About the Halifax Examiner

The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet, and now includes a growing collection of writers, contributors, and staff. Left to right: Joan Baxter, Stephen Kimber, Linda Pannozzo, Erica Butler, Jennifer Henderson, Iris the Amazing, Tim Bousquet, Evelyn C. White, El Jones, Philip Moscovitch More about the Examiner.

DEAD WRONG

A botched police investigation and a probable wrongful conviction shed light on the murders of dozens of women in Nova Scotia.